My Heart Hurts
by Tinkering
Summary: Read & review.One-shot unless you like it then i'll fic it.Harry's POV on his last two years of Hogwarts and his parting with what's left of his former life.


A/N: I really have to stop doing this…having these brilliant story ideas before I have time to WRITE them.

Kicks my muse in the shins.

"Ow!" dodges muse's foot and blows a raspberry at him.

Anyway…onto the story lol.

**My Heart Hurts**

After Sirius' death I'd withdrawn myself from everyone. The Dursleys realized something momentous had happened. They didn't bother me, and I never sought them out. When I left them Dumbledore _made_ me go back to Grimmauld's Place. I told him I never wanted to set foot in that house again and he…wouldn't listen. He said he was sorry but I still had to prepare myself. Even more so now I knew what I had to prepare myself for. I spent my short summer with just letters to Ron and Hermione, brief visits from Remus when there was Order business and lessons with Professor Snape. I finished Occlumency, as I didn't have any problem clearing my mind anymore. I just thought of Sirius felt empty and there was step one all done for me. He moved on to Legilimency and I admit I took pleasure in finding the memories he so didn't want me to and hanging on to them like a pitbull when he tried to get me out of his head. With this, dueling lessons and the fact we were the only people in the house mostly I got to know and respect, even if I didn't quite like, him. And I began to grow up.

I realized things change and not always the way we want. Loss was change and no want likes to lose…anything or anyone. Shifting feelings were change…and they were not all wanted especially when you realized you're gay and you don't quite hate your professor anymore. Or maybe when you realized your friends won't always be your friends just like your enemies won't always be your enemies because you conceive that the person you trusted most in the world, the only person for you to trust could be using you. Maybe that isn't true at all and maybe it is and maybe I should just give up and say that 'I grew up' instead of trying to explain.

I went back to school, wary and confused but always on my guard. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Moody would be proud…if he weren't depressed by what I was doing to myself. I stayed with my friends, but they could sense the distance between us. I still obeyed Professor Dumbledore, but he could see the hesitation in my eyes. I still trained with Professor Snape, and he became worried by the blankness of my face. And my enemy…or former enemy I thought of him, because he just wasn't my problem anymore, hardly saw hide or hair of me. Draco must have wondered if I died over the holiday and come to gloat because I saw him beginning to check up on me. But when he found me and there were no returned taunts, no mocking sneers no reaction at all…I think I made him grow up too. I told him just as much not noticing how dead my voice was as I said it. 'The world doesn't revolve around you or me Malfoy. We're just specks of dust in this universe and there's always going to be another speck bigger wanting to wipe us out.' I meant Voldemort and he knew it. He turned paler and ran away and really I didn't hold it against him. The feelings I had for everyone had changed over the summer. I could see denial was just another form of self-preservation for him and I could respect that. But I was facing reality while he wanted to go on playing like our little script in the school 'play' must be stuck to even if the possibility every single one of us was going to die lay ahead.

My friends tried to snap me out of my mood but I wasn't budging. Why bother? I knew how this was going to end. They thought it was all about Sirius but how could I just slap them in the face with the lessons on mortality that had finally been slammed home to me. Not just with Sirius, not just with the prophecy, not just with the deaths of everyone around me…all connected to me but with it all! Add it all together and it just about said 'You're going to die too.' Grim view to take yea but try to deny it if you can. Do you think _you're_ immortal? Every time Dumbledore looked at me I could see sadness in his eyes. But also a kind of grim pride. Sadness for saddling me with the weight of the wizarding world on my back and pride, even if tarnished that I was rising to the challenge. And who knew Professor Snape had a heart? He let me into his armor and I realized he was just like me. Facing reality, no lies no fairy tale endings ahead and no icing to glaze over the 'hiccups'. He was my mentor and I got to know him as a friend and for that I was grateful. I had needed someone to share the weight on my shoulders with and he was there. As for Draco I hardly saw him except in classes and looking back now I say yes I most definitely changed him. Even in my position I began to pity him for I knew what was possibly most likely to come next year for him. His father was a Death Eater. He was coming of age. He would be expected to become one also. In class he carried a look much like mine. As if what we were living through were just a mirage and that some day it would all shimmer away and show us the situation we were _really_ in. And I felt sorry for disillusioning him. But then again even if I hadn't Voldemort's little reminder would have. There was a 'dress rehearsal' attack on the school near the end of sixth year. It was…horrific. It gave me a taste of what was coming next year and it made me grow up some more. We lost students and unfortunately many young. Dean, Parvati, Padma, Terry and Hannah were also gone with Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott no less. Houses don't matter with Voldemort.

I thought I was young and well people assume just because they are young they surely have years to live. EEEEEECCCCK. Sorry wrong answer. THAT is what mortality is. You could die tomorrow! You could have died yesterday! You could have died last month! You could have died last year! You could have died a minute after being born! So I decided hell…I wasn't living just to look forward to Voldemort blasting me into oblivion or me doing that to him. I came alive again that summer but still intellectually grown. More grown up than before because last year I had discovered, and decided to hide in a shell of understanding. Well why not share that shell with everyone?

I let go of my pain over Sirius. I would no doubt see him again some day sooner or later. I embraced my friends old and new and loved them more than I ever had before because well I didn't know how much time I would have with them or they with me so I was going to make the most of it. I forgave Dumbledore and I told him so. And he was happy, he told me on the day I turned of age at Grimmauld's Place, that I had learnt and grown and would make a fine young gentleman. I almost snorted at that but then again just like mortality who knew light and darkness? Winner and loser? I might not lose…then again Voldemort might win. And over the summer and into the seventh year of Hogwarts my friend and mentor at the arts of dueling and divining of minds, became my mentor in something else. I learned more with the gift of his body to me than I would have probably, just waiting to see if I lived past Voldemort to learn to…be with someone. And if being with someone is a part of living well I was just learning more wasn't I? Which makes it seem a whole lot better thinking back to him fondly and remembering he had been my professor. Few other people ever saw what I did of Severus Snape and I will be eternally grateful to him for taking my virginity, because again it helped me grow and there could have been no one better. I find it strange how when I think of him my thoughts then turn to Draco. But then again I think it's because _he_ pushed me to him. He taught me how to love so I would learn to love and…he never got to find out his lesson succeeded.

Draco came back to school the same way I did. Living for the day. It seems he had turned down his father's demand that he became a Death Eater and quite simply expected to be struck down by him the day of the attack on Hogwarts. He told me this one of the times we had been chatting together casually after Quidditch and I never went to tell Dumbledore or anyone what he said because we already _knew_ there'd be an attack. We just didn't know when and neither did he so there wasn't really any news to share. And we had a lot more personally talks like that. Coincidentally, yea right, they mostly seemed to happen in Professor Snape's office for one reason or another and then hours after leaving Snape would stroll back in with a brief sorry and ask why we had wanted him. By then we had talked so much about other things we'd quite forgot and Snape would shoo us away to come back when we remembered. For half the term I came back to him _several_ times just to ask him about one thing and I never realized how Draco was always there and he would always need to pop out to do something until I look back now. Well Mr. Matchmaker got his way and Draco grew on me. And eventually I wanted him and he wanted me and something was bound to happen it being the two of us and we usually got what we wanted and it did.

It didn't happen until almost the end of seventh year and after three times with Severus earlier in the year, after which he told me that part of our relationship was done and to run along for someone more to my tastes, my sexual needs had built up and well…I was living. And Draco was living. And for some reason when the two of us had gone to the Room of Requirement for our now usual chat instead of meeting in the dungeons, there was a giant bed instead of a cozy little place to talk. I had looked at him and he had looked back at me and shrugged with a red tint growing on his face I was sure I shared and we came to the decision it's here, let's use it. And considering it had been just about eight in the evening when we went there, we must have used it…and used it…and used it…and used it…and well you get the idea, cause we were there until dawn. With pauses in between to talk of course because that was what we had came there to do in the first place. We shared dreams, fantasies, and aspirations. I told him about my visions with Voldemort and he told me about nightmares he had more frequently now with his family dying because they were involved with Voldemort. I told him I had some kinky fantasies about giant four poster beds and he told me to show him and I did only…because he asked of course. Afterwards I told him I wanted to be an Auror and he told me he didn't know what he wanted to be yet but he'd find some nice wizarding university to study at. And we ignored the war that was coming for that one night.

And would you know the damn very next day…

He attacked. He slaughtered half the school. He practically destroyed the thing most dear to most of us. But castles can be rebuilt. Albus Dumbledore cannot. When he fell I thought it was over. But there was still me. And everyone was depending on me. If I fell there would be no more hope. I almost fell…but Severus died for me. He called me 'stupid boy' while shielding me from the Killing Curse. He fell into my arms and I…wanted more than anything to stop and cry my heart out but I would _NOT _let his loss be in vain. And I had fought back harder. Voldemort had no idea what he did to me when he took Severus away. He stomped on my already cracked heart at the loss of Dumbledore and proceeded to tap dance on it after shattering it by taunting me about loving my professor. I'm sure he regrets it wherever in the deepest, blazing part of Hades he is. Feelings make you vulnerable yes but when you are fighting FOR your feelings they make you stronger. And I EX-TER-MINATED that piece of shit. Who would step before me then but Lucius Malfoy? I had frozen for a second at the gray eyes that were so familiar to me and the pale blond hair…I barely moved in time to avoid a Killing Curse. I remembered where I was…I remembered who I was…and I remembered what I had to do. And I did it.

I lost so much that day. My heart hurts. I lost all my friends…all my almost family and everyone that mattered to me to Voldemort. In fact, the only person still living that knew me, that I cared about, that…just wanted nothing to do with me anymore, was Draco.

He knew I'd killed his father and I didn't deny it when he confronted me but I did say I was sorry and I just did what I had to do to survive and he did understand _that_ but I don't think he forgave me. And the last look I got at him at the Leaving Feast just annihilated any heart I had felt. He looked so like Lucius. His eyes were cold and his face pinched more than ever and he'd pulled back his hair in an awful black ribbon like his father did and he looked at me. Straight in the eye…and looked away. And I'd thought that losing my mother, father, Sirius, Remus, Severus, Ron Hermione, Neville, Luna, Ginny, Fred, George, McGonagall, Mrs. Weasley,Albus Dumbledoreand all my other friends plus Percy on thedark side, I'd felt sad for his remaining family…I'd thought that hurt. But the moment my last tiny fragile link with my not-so-happy-but-wasn't-that-bad past broke…I wanted to howl and scream my throat raw and run outside and throw myself in the lake and hope the squid pulled me under and tore me apart. Some other pain so I wouldn't feel…this. And I left the castle never to see him again and Merlin...my heart hurts.


End file.
